- Author: Cynthia Kintigh

One of the hazards of contributing to a shared blog, is that one forgets to post. So in this case, while I said in my last post that we would re-visit the lemoncello in mid-May, here it is September. Time flies.
The lemoncello is a huge success, we've been enjoying it on the hot summer afternoons that are plentiful in Davis. And here's how I got from pith to pleasure . . . .
The first steps in the lemoncello process were documented in this early Spring post. The recipe calls for 6 weeks of steeping the lemon zest in the alcohol in a cool, dark...
- Author: Cynthia Kintigh

It's early spring, and that means one thing: I am once again drowning in lemons. This year with our tree well established, we had a bumper crop. Even as an espalier, our tree produces more lemons than we can use. And as anyone with a lemon tree knows - it's almost impossible to give away lemons. Lemons are the zucchini of winter.
With a pantry full of marmalade, a batch of salted lemons preserving, and all of the copper gleaming, I was looking for a new way to use my harvest. A...
- Author: Ann King Filmer

California's drinking age of 21 prohibits many undergraduate students from learning critical skills early in their academic careers — sensory skills that they will need when they move on to jobs in the multimillion-dollar winemaking, brewing, and food industries.
Not until students turn 21 can they taste the wine and beer they make and learn to assess its sensory quality. Learning the characteristics of a wide assortment of good (and not-so-good) wines and beers is an important component of winemaking and brewing. Having to wait until their junior or senior year to learn these skills is a disadvantage for these students.
Legislation (AB 1989) has been proposed by California Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro (D-North...
- Author: John Stumbos

Drink beer to lose weight? That’s what some recent newspaper headlines trumpeted. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. Actually, what our favorite authority on beer — UC Davis professor Charles Bamforth (right) — said was that swapping a glass of wine for a beer every day for a week would cut out more calories than are burned off during a 30-minute jog.
Why? Because most of the calories in alcoholic beverages are in the alcohol and wine typically has a higher alcohol content than beer. “The higher the alcohol content in any drink, the more calories it contains,” says Bamforth, the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences.
He contends...